Since Cena took over as WWE’s infallible t-shirt factory and All-Times Champ, the question has been, “when’s he turning heel?” It’s the next big step in the evolution of a great champion. Hulk Hogan did it. Stone Cold Steve Austin did it. The Rock did it. These guys were all the vitamin-eating, lady-saving, troops-loving icons of pro wrestling popularity and then bam, they gave it all up to be hated. They all eventually came back around to the side of the angels, but the iconic heel turn was there. Hollywood Hogan, Hollywood Rock, paranoid McMahon sycophant Austin.

Cena as a bad guy is such an interesting prospect that him playing a heel in a MOVIE was news. Cena’s been “some a y’all like me, some a y’all don’t” for years, but now we have a definitive answer, courtesy of (of all things) a bench press technique video.

“It will never happen. Oh I’ve got it in me for sure. I do what they tell me, boss.”

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And so it goes.

Today’s study question: How DOES Cena turn heel? How would you do it? Let us know in the comments section below. Also, let us know if this bench press etiquette is total crap or whatever.

We’ve got the best and most interesting way (Arrogant super-man, robotic winning machine that you beg for someone to fell) and then there are the more obvious WWE lame ways (becomes a coward suddenly/starts cheating a bunch). They want to avoid going down the route of “Jerk to the fans/YOU PEOPLE” because that’ll probably get the cheers of, “FINALLY HES BEING COOL!” or whatever.

I agree that there’s no way it happens anytime soon, but ‘never’ is a long time.

The first thing they have to do is find a next TOP GUY. Somebody who can replace or at least be in the ballpark of Cena’s popularity. Maybe give him just a little bit more edge to win over some of the kids who grew up Cena fans and are now growing a bit more cynical in their teenage years. You have the new guy win the Rumble and take the belt from Cena at Mania. Cena raises his hand and praises the new guy. They have at least a couple rematches. Cena comes close every time, but can never quite get the win against the new guy. Finally at Summerslam, as Cena’s frustrations boil and he sees his spot slipping away and his time ending, he resorts to some sort of underhanded tactic to get the job done. (Enlisting help from the most despicable heel on the program.

This is a great idea, and has the perfect qualifier to it – finding the next top guy. For all the people that love or hate Cena (and I hate to sound like him saying that), it needs to be understood that the WWE is a business at the end of the day and they want to make money. Cena being the top guy puts butts in seats and sells T-shirts, hats, mugs, DVDs, whatever else they’re shilling at the moment (hell, maybe even that thing I hear about for $9.99/month all the time). He’s constantly putting himself, and therefore WWE out there in the public eye outside of the ring as well. Whether he does it because he’s actually a decent person, or just doing it to look good doesn’t matter, he does quite a bit. People that couldn’t name a wrestler since Hogan at least know Cena, and that’s big from a business standpoint. All Make a Wish stuff, the different programs for the military, etc. makes both him and the WWE look good. Even though he’s not the best guy in the ring or on the mic every night, and most longtime/die-hard fans hate the character, he’s a hard person to replace as the top of the WWE pyramid right now.

Heel or face, I think a plurality of fans are just sick of him. Ditto Orton. Cena can be a ’90’s Taker, squashing big brutes away from the title picture and it would be a more welcome development than main event champion heel Cena.

Cena’s already the most legitimately hated guy in the company, so what’s to gain by turning him heel? I guess all the dudes who chant “CE-NA SUCKS” would run out and buy a CWO shirt, but they’ll only do that when there aren’t enough little cancer kids making wishes for The Champ to be Here.

How to turn John Cena: I’d put him in a feud leading up to Wrestlemania with an unorthodox character that vows to push him to the limits and make him do something he shouldn’t do in order to gain victory. I’d have that match tell a wonderful story where Cena is taken to the brink of madness and is finally faced with a choice…high road or low road? And he takes a steel chair and beats his opponent with it and accepts that he truly is a monster on the inside. That’s how IDE turn john Cena heel. But hey, what do I know?

The best part about this completely theoretical and completely never been done before storyline is that said unorthodox character would totally get elevated by his lengthy feud with Cena. This would in no way make people lose interest in said unorthodox character.

All depends on how you look it. I have decide that all WWE faces are actually heels and all the WWE heels are actually faces. Shaemus stealing cars and sh*ting in it, as a face. Cena resorting to gay jokes, as a face. Heels being the only characters with actual motivation in their stories. Heels using logic and common sense.

So, it’s not just me that thinks this? I don’t think the stuff Cena’s been doing has been meant for Cena since the day Daniel Bryan left. They just took whatever Notepad file that had Bryan’s storyline for the next few months in it and C+P’d it into Cena’s.

Think about all the explaining Cena had to do–it doesn’t even make sense. Cena’s a 15 time fucking champion–he doesn’t have to explain shit. “I’m wrestling Brock Lesnar ’cause I’m bored and I’m tired of beating the rest of these goobers” should’ve been the only thing he had to say.

Hell, even the fight Cena had against Lesnar seemed like a fight that would make more sense if it was Bryan. Compared to Lesnar, Bryan’s this tiny little guy so him just getting tossed around a bunch, doing weak little attempts to fight back–everything fits RIGHT down to the STF lock. Lesnar’s weak to submissions, Bryan’s a submission master, so what’s the guy’s go-to for a last shot win? Yeah. Then Lesnar breaks it and smashes the guy, taking the belt.

It even gets a better reaction than what WWE got from the Cena/Lesnar fight. Instead of everyone being like, “Oh shit Cena FINALLY got squashed!” it would’ve been, “OMG WTF did Lesnar do to OUR HERO?!?!?!”

But then, from CM Punk walking out to Taker giving up against Lesnar and other shit, I have to think that WWE has basically spent the whole year doing COMPLETELY different shit from what they initially planned for everyone.

I said for a long time (although it’s a moot point now), that the best way to turn Cena heel and give him momentum going forward was for him to beat Undertaker’s Streak at WrestleMania, but by cheating to win.

Cena begins the match as he is now, but gets more and more frustrated as Undertaker keeps kicking out of the AA / escaping from the STF, so he eventually snaps and blasts Undertaker with a weapon of some sort while the ref is distracted and Tombstone’s him (onto said weapon if need be) for the win.

He ends the most beloved long-term thing in WWE by cheating and, in theory, he becomes the ultimate heel.

When Brie is about to win her match against Nikki at NOC, Cena should run out and annihilate Brie like she is Bray Wyatt in a steel cage.. Wonder Woman invisible jet shoulder blocks, Wrestlemania style delayed “you can’t see me”, soul crushing AA, an actual painful looking STF, and punctuated by John and Nikki drying humping over Brie with a goat-face shirt draped over her body.

Won a record number of ‘championships’. Did amazing work for charity. Constantly overcame the odds. He was a huge star, then overnight was absolutely despised by everyone.

Have someone (the heel who would then become the face) raise suspicions over Cena, probably just alluding rather than straight saying what he thinks. Make the theme of the angle be Cena trying to defend himself, then switching to trying justify his actions because of all the good they did for make-a-wish etc.

No, I don’t have a way to get out of that. I’m the what guy, not the how guy.

Not sure how I’d do it now, I would’ve had him face the undertaker at Mania then lose. Face that him at his best isn’t as good as the undertaker (No I beat myself crap) so when the rematch comes around Cena cheats to beat the Undertaker. Instant heel heat from everyone and the most glorious turn ever starts.

Now? I’d have it be sort of the same thing in that he can’t take losing to *insert next massively over guy here* so he cheats to beat him just when he’s about to have his moment with the title or whatever. That’s the only way he’s getting heel heat, just straight up turning on a fan favourite will get him cheered. You need to build up a massive moment for THE fan favourite and have Cena rip it away by cheating.

It’s the most common lament of the modern wrestling fan: “Why won’t John Cena turn heel?”

And yet, in a time when characters portrayed as out and out villains – like Bray Wyatt and Wade Barrett – get loud cheers everywhere they go, you need to ask yourself what a heel actually is.

A heel in pro-wrestling is a guy the fans hate, who’s good at egging them on to hate him, always getting booked in matches where the stipulations ought to finally lead to his comeuppance only to escape intact, and occasionally, at big-ticket events, the guy who finally gets his ass righteously whupped to send the fans home happy.

Beg pardon, but…you do realize John Cena fulfills ALL of these conditions, right?

Ironically, the best way to make Cena a heel is to stay the current course, just change the way he acts about it. Heels are normally cowards, but I don’t think Cena needs to be one for that. Brandon had an idea where Cena just owned up to being fking Superman that would work pretty well. Stop all this “I have respect for my opponent” nonsense and just have him trash talk the entire roster, calling them largely worthless and claiming he’s impossible to stop. You could even bring in stuff like him selling more T-shirts and merch as part of the angle. Then, the few times he IS taken to his absolute limit by an opponent, if he wins just have him Hulk out and beat the holy fuck out of his opponent.

Of course, this only works if he’s funny about it and has an actual personality. Otherwise you’re just making him unlikable, which is different from people booing him at shows, because right now he’s still making them money.

One of your top faces is having a feud with a top heel. It’s been going on for months and has come down to a two out of three match at one of the major PPVs. I’d shoot for Wrestlemania, if not then Summer Slam. The first fall would be a regular match, second fall would be a no disqualification (or street fight or whatever you want to call it) and the third would be a Hell In A Cell. Comes the time of the PPV, you have the HIAC hanging above the ring for all to see both in attendance and at home.

Fall one goes to the heel.
Match two, the face is going to win (which everyone is expecting so that we can get that third match, the HIAC). BUT Cena runs down and costs the face the match robbing everyone of a HIAC. Motivation would be super easy, have him finally get sick and tired of the “Cena sucks” chants or something like that. But yeah, fans would be pissed to miss out on a HIAC (even though it’s not a guarantee because they always say if it comes down to the third match in these cases)

They missed the golden opportunity at Summer Slam. I said “If he’s going to do it, this is the time.”

A. He’s wearing Hogan’s colors suddenly right before a huge “Summer” themed PPV.
B. The one man he fears, the one man he’s afraid he can’t really beat, is the person they’ve turned to to get the belt off of him.
C. Lesnar carrying the belt as a part-timer would make a great red herring. It seemed so likely.
D. In the match itself, you have Hunter come down so it looks like there’s a schmozz finish, but he fucks up Lesnar instead of Cena.
E. Cena stands tall with the authority, hating himself for what he’s had to do but confident in the fact that he’s saving us…FROM OURSELVES.

Table was perfectly set and he didn’t sit down to eat. They could still do that very thing at NoC, but I doubt it will happen.

But yeah, he should throw in with the Authority (he’s the perfect company man, so they SHOULD love him) . “All of you wanted Bray Wyatt to be champion, all of you wanted a quitter like CM Punk to be champion, all of you wanted a MONSTER like Brock Lesnar to be champion. I had to do this to save you, to save THE BUSINESS, from yourselves.”

Then you have Rollins drop the briefcase to Reigns (which doesn’t affect Rollins/Ambrose at all) and Reigns cashes in on Cena and the Authority at WM 31.

I actually DON’T want him to turn heel. even if the spectacle of it and the how interesting it would be to see how he’d act it out is huge.

I just want him to step into that veteran role and put people over better, stop screwing and joking around and to change his in-ring style some more more often. I don’t want him to turn heel and stay on top even more but with a new excuse!

Unfortunately, the only way I can see him taking on that new role that you described would be a real life or kayfabe injury. Cause only real life odds like TWO KNEE REPLACEMENTS or FUSED DISC IN MY BACK, JACK would be a thing to force the hand of Cena and/or the WWE to follow through with such an angle.

another way is whenever people realize that, as trolly and impossible not to boo as Cena is, once the other half of people stop shouting “CENA SUCKS!” as a response to “let’s go Cena!”.. once they’re able to resist that and just set on their hands for his parts or just chant “same old shit” or “boring” or something to that effect (because this is the only situation where I’m fine with the crowd harassing the performers like that), and once Micheal Cole can no longer say “love him or hate him, he always draws a reaction out of everybody” or whatever, then and ONLY THEN Cena stops being the face of the WWE.